Posts by Bart Janssen
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Just a note. I don't mean to criticise Hilary about her interpretation of the New Scientist article. Science writing is a different language there is no way a lay reader can be expected to know how scientific writing uses weasel words like "may" or "suggests" etc.
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I sure hope the New Scientist was pretty careful about the distinction.
I'd hope so too Craig
So from the PNAS paper (the original peer reviewed article) we get
Our results suggest that prenatal androgens increase risk preferences and promote more rapid visuomotor scanning and physical reflexes. The success and longevity of traders exposed to high levels of prenatal androgens further suggests that financial markets may select for biological traits rather than rational expectations.
Key words here are "results suggest" and "may select". A quick skim of the paper shows that the linkage is not strong and performance is at least as strongly linked to experience as finger length ratio (which is used to infer androgen exposure in utero). There are more caveats in the discussion pointing out this only applies to the short term fast traders.
From New Scientist we get
SUCCESSFUL financial traders may be born, not made. Men who excel at fast-paced financial trading may have been exposed to higher levels of testosterone in the uterus than their less successful colleagues.
but they also get someone to say this
The study confirms that exposure to sex hormones early in life enables particular behaviours to develop, says Bruce McEwen of the Rockefeller University in New York
The problem is that while New Scientist retains the weasel words that are so important in the journal paper, most lay readers will think that what was said was in-utero testosterone causes...
Interestingly the paper also goes on to talk about the reverse correlation for maths and science departments and that long term investment traders are hired from those areas. That is, maths and science departments are full of people whose finger length ratios suggest that they have been exposed to less androgen in utero. And since anecdotal evidence suggests that there are a lot of Aspergers in maths and science departments you could look at the same paper and say Aspergers is correlated to less in-utero testosterone. Confused yet? See why I hate epidemiology?
But New Scientist did OK.
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Another study reported in New Scientist implicated high levels of uterine testosterone as a cause of successful financial trading in the resulting adult children!
Ugh!
It is a very natural human trait to see correlation and think causation. I'm betting most people are genetically wired that way.
But epidemiology, the statistical study of disease and health in populations, is rife with correlations that later proved to be either plain wrong or irrelevant.
It's an incredibly powerful science but it is just horrible when it gets reported in the press.
That there is a correlation may be real (may not be because it's really easy to do these studies and get the wrong statistical answer because your sample group was biased in some way you hadn't realised).
But the linkage may be several steps removed from testosterone and may even be well removed from events in the uterus. Women with high in-utero testosterone may be attracted to men with a genotype that is linked to mathematical skills which is in turn linked to a pheromone they produce.
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I'm far from convinced by the whole idea that you can "reclaim" or "re-contextualise" poisonous hate speech, like taking small, regular doses of snake venom to build up an immunity. Nice theory, shame about the reality it has to operate in.
What pisses me off is that it seems as though each new word that is used gets turned into a derogatory term by the haters.
It's like trying to keep ahead of Flu virus, every new Flu jab is defeated by the next virus.
In the end the only word that is safe is the person's name, although that didn't help Neil when I was a teenager.
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I want to think more about the names thing before posting.
But just a couple of comments about Autism testing etc.
The reality is that over the next 50 years, which is not that long, we will develop the ability to determine which genetic changes cause, or make it more likely that people will suffer certain diseases, eg Parkinsons or tooth decay. It is also likely that for many of those genetic changes we will be able to suggest treatments or drugs that will prevent the disease.
Now it's easy for tooth decay. Of course you want your child to have great teeth when they are 90. But the classic example is, if you could, should you prevent the child of a Deaf couple from being deaf? For example by reversing a genetic change in the feotus. That child might find society as whole easier but may be disconnected from the Deaf community.
Russell's personal example is in the same difficult category. We know people with different brains have difficulty in our society. If we could, should we make it easier for them? Do we have the right to make that choice for the child? Do we have the right to NOT make that choice for the child? Are these people with different brains the next step in human evolution?
These are really really difficult questions.
But developing a test that could identify an Asperger child early would allow the parents to prepare a different and better school experience for them. Surely that is a good thing? But the same test may allow parents to choose to not have that child.
These are really difficult questions that societies will have to deal with as we develop the knowledge and technology. There is no point in expecting us scientists to provide the answer to the social questions. Because while we may understand the technology and may have been talking about it a few year earlier than the rest of society, we are simply members of society too and able to get it as wrong as anyone.
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Oh no :(
Good grief I don't think I ever knew there was a difference between Deaf and deaf. And now you've pointed it out it makes sense.
Hearing-impaired makes sense too, heck I'm slowly but surely heading that way myself especially from the right ... and if someone is asking me to do something.
So apart from making mistakes and then hoping for forgiveness what words should one use? BTW that sentence was hard to figure out without stepping into the minefield.
I'm serious, I cause enough offense with my opinions as it is without doing it accidentally as well.
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And why won't my gravatar change? :(
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disabled. I hate that word. I HATE it.
Christopher, please, what word do I use instead? Not being snarky just a pure honest question because damned if I can find a word that describes er you know ... that hasn't been made derogatory. I end up with that word because it feels accurate without being as derogatory as some others.
Granted if I'm describing deafness then deaf is just fine. But what if I'm referring to one of several possibilities?
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People rely on the Internet for vital life support?
Yes, or more accurately for systems that are important if not essential for health.
And in addition there are a huge number of disabled who gain tremendous benefit from the internet.
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Why don't they just call it pre-season training?
Hard grounds, sloppy skills, empty stands, random squads, hamstring injuries left right and centre.
What I saw was pretty awful really, not bad for a rehearsal but not really fit for the public.
Waiting for India to arrive so we can watch more real summer sport.